METHODS · 7 MIN READ

What Is the I Ching (Yijing)?

A guide to the Book of Changes as a classical text, a commentarial tradition, and a source for divination methods.

The I Ching or Yijing (易经, Yìjīng), usually translated as the Book of Changes, is a Chinese classic made up of a core text and layers of commentary. It has been read as a divination text, a work of philosophy, a source for political and ethical reflection, and an object of textual history. Those uses overlap, but they are not identical.

The received Zhouyi (《周易》, Zhōuyì) text is organized around sixty-four hexagrams. Each hexagram has a name and a statement; individual lines also have statements. Later commentaries, often grouped as the “Ten Wings” (十翼, Shí Yì), shaped how readers understood the text. Different editions and interpretive traditions may emphasize different layers.

The text and the method are not the same thing#

The Yijing is a classic text. Yarrow-stalk procedures, coin methods, and later systems such as Liuyao (六爻, liùyáo) are ways of generating or interpreting symbols associated with the book. A person can study the Zhouyi as a text without using it to answer a personal question; a divination practitioner may use one procedure among several.

This distinction also helps with translation. “I Ching” is familiar in English and appears as the Wikipedia article title. “Yijing” is the Hanyu Pinyin form. “Zhouyi” often refers more specifically to the received classic or its core text. The glossary lists these forms and the contexts in which they are useful.

Reading with context#

When you encounter a quotation, ask which edition and layer it comes from: the core text, a line statement, a commentary, or a later interpretation. A translation is already an editorial choice, so compare notes and cite the translator. Ancient wording should not be made to sound like a modern psychological diagnosis or a guaranteed forecast.

The Chinese Text Project provides the Chinese text of the Book of Changes, including the Xici or “Appended Statements”. English readers can use these links to distinguish the source text from a modern explanation.

Further reading#

• I Ching on English Wikipedia.
• Richard J. Smith, Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World.
• How I Ching hexagrams work.